Student Camera

I would recommend a nice entry-level DSLR as a starter camera for someone interested in learning photography. They usually have excellent automatic settings so you can get used to the camera. Then as you become more comfortable and familiar with your camera, you can start to branch out and use some of the manual features. They really are wonderful learning cameras. I would recommend either the Nikon D40, D40X or D60 or the Canon Rebel XT or XTi. As for film... It depends. I just recently took a photography class at a local community college. They class used to be a film class, but they have recently switched over to digital. If you look at what photography schools are teaching, many are giving up film all together and are teaching only digital. Others are teaching both film and digital. I think honestly having a knowledge of how to develop film isn't really necessary for pursuing photography these days, however, if photography is something that really interests you, learning how to develop film can give you a good understanding of how the entire photographic process works. Basically, I think it is just good knowledge to have even if you never use it in the digital age. :)

If you are using film, then the best camera would be a Pentax K1000. It's fully manual and it's easy to see your mistakes when the film is developed, so it's a great teaching tool. Film photography is a dying art, but a lot of people still prefer it over digital. For one thing, the color accuracy of the photo is much better, in my opinion, even though it has a lot of film grain in it. I would still want to learn how to develop film in a darkroom because just because a lot of people aren't using it, doesn't mean that people shouldn't learn it. There are a lot of old forms of photography out there that people still use like glass slides, for example.